When tax phobia veers into imbecility

There's a story in USA Today about what various state governments are planning to do to raise the money to maintain the crumbling transportation infrastructure, also known as your streets and highways.

There seems to be a consensus evolving that the best bet is some sort of GPS-type device that will keep track of the miles you drive and you will be taxed accordingly.

They won't call it a "tax" though, because everybody knows taxes are un-American. In fact, taxes are the thin edge of the communist wedge, as every school-child knows by now.

So instead of doing something simple, like raising gasoline taxes, they're going to force you to buy a tracking device and then charge you a "user fee" according to how many miles you put on.

That way everybody can at least feel good about the fact that America has the lowest gasoline taxes in the developed world. And it's fair too. Why should that millionaire in Malibu pay the same absurd gas taxes on his V-12 Bentley as some wanker commuting 50 miles each way to a minimum wage job in a clapped out ten year old Honda?

So if Bentley boy only drives 50 miles a week and you drive 100 miles a day, he won't inadvertently be paying your rightful share of road maintenance.

And America won't be raising taxes.